In flames, we will burn
by SerynnLux
Summary: The aftermath of the barricade leaves them raw, fragile, stripped to the core. Shaking and shivering in shame. And burning, like the boys, they will burn in the passion of freedom, because what is the greatest goal, what is there to fight for, if not to be free?


**First off, I would just like to say that this does get slightly into religion and God, and Catholic beliefs. Once very vaguely, others in direct quote. Those quotes have been taken from either the book Les Misérables or the musical. I mean no offense to anyone reading.**

**In addition, the rather large speech Enjolras gives was taken from the novel, written by Victor Hugo. It is from **_**Jean Valjean, Book 1**_**. And I could totally hear Aaron Tveit reading it in my mind. And there is E/R, in a manner of speaking, if you squint, but it does not have to be read as such.**

**Also, as I am neither dead, a man, French, composers or a literary genius, none of the beloved characters in this are mine! Only Jacques is.**

_We strive towards a larger goal  
Our little lives don't count  
At all_

Jacques's footsteps echoed as he walked down the still deserted street, the sound of the hard soles of his shoes meeting the even harder cobblestone of the road resounding in the morning air. The silent morning air. Air that had rang out, not too long ago, with the sounds of screams, and gunfire, and cannon fire. Now though, it was still. Serene. Jacques, who had never in his life been anything that could be considered religious, shivered and suppressed the urge to cross himself, as he had seen the old beggar women outside the church do.

Click, click, click. His footsteps and his own heart were all sound he could hear. Click – beat –click – beat – click – beat – splash. He looked down; his foot was in a shallow puddle, a puddle formed in the previous night. A puddle created by an errant cannon blast. A puddle of red tinged water. On the surface, Jacques could see his own reflection, rippled, distorted and barely recognizable. He swallowed back bile and looked up, removing his foot slowly.

The Café Musain. In the dim morning light, with its falling down walls and crooked structure, it would have been a charming sight. A place of refuge and laughter, where Tomas the bartender would smile and hand you a drink. It would have been a sight to warm even the coldest of hearts, if not for the brilliant red slash spilling from the upper window. From his distance, Jacques couldn't see what it was, only that it hung from the window of the Café like a tear not yet shed. As if the building itself wept for the boys who had breathed their last during the dark hours of the morning.

Jacques took a breath, steeling himself for what he had come here for. Payment ... and repayment. He was unsure. He moved slowly, feeling the weight of his shoulders increase with each step, as if he already carried the weight of the bodies he would soon move.

No longer did his footsteps echo. They were muted by the red water he walked in. The streets ran with it, it stained stones and pooled in cracks. He swallowed reflexively.

The barricade had been removed, the wood piled against walls, what parts hadn't been blown apart by cannon that was. Here and there were bits of splintered and shattered furniture, all speckled and flecked with blood. Blood in the streets, on the walls, scattered across the remnants of the barricade.

"_Oh God_," Jacques thought "_It's everywhere_". Again he pushed down the bile in his throat. An empty feeling took hold in his chest, carving him out, leaving him hollow and cold. Ahead, a group of women knelt, scrubbing the blood from the street. It coated their hands, lodged in nail beds. Jacques flexed his own fingers, knowing they didn't mind, put up with it and felt not revulsion because of whose blood it was. The boys – men really, who the blood had come from. In their faces, Jacques could read his own emotions. Shock, horror, fear, guilt, shame.

One of the women met his eyes before looking away. But in her gaze, there was a fire. A fire Jacques couldn't feel, not through the cold emptiness. He nodded once before moving to stand with a silent cluster of men. He was close enough now to see what the red slash was, though he refused to look.

As he passed her, the woman spoke, her voice breaking the silence that had hung over the street. Strangely though, it didn't shatter the morning. Her words were a spark from the fire Jacques had seen in her eyes.

"Did you see them, going off to fight?" She asked both no one and everyone at the same time. "The children of the barricade who didn't the night?" her voice was quiet, though it hitched slightly on the word children. Again Jacques shuddered. _He_ was a child, not these men. Another woman answered the question, and Jacques stopped and listened. The woman answered the question with one of her own.

"Did you see them lying where they died?" She demanded, her voice both catching and fanning the spark from the other's words. "Someone used to cradle them, and kissed them when they cried" she stated, never once stopping her scrubbing. Another joined in, her voice dull, but breathing life to the spark just the same.

"Did you see them lying side by side?" her words hung in the air, never rising above a whisper, but challenging for all the empty tone that delivered them._ Did you see? Did you?_

In the still morning, words from the night before echoed, asking plaintively of the people. Words spoken by none, but heard and felt by all.

"_Will the world remember you when you fall? Can it be your death means nothing at all?"_

Jacques closed his eyes. He had known the boys – men of the barricade. All were older than he, all were richer, more refined, better fed and cleaner. All had treated him with kindness, giving him food or drink, speaking to him occasionally, once or twice giving him a few sous for a hot meal on a cold night. He had seen and heard the speeches of the blond leader En – no. Jacques stopped that line of thought. He wouldn't think of it, not now. He moved closer to the men gathered near the Café, resolutely not looking up at the widow.

Jacques cleared his throat, and one of the men turned around. He saw Jacques standing there, and his grey eyes softened.

"I've come to –" to what? To help? To mourn? To pay respect? To confirm? To what? Before Jacques could finish, the man put a hand on his shoulder, looking at him, something akin to pity in his eyes, though deep behind that, almost buried with grief there was a spark.

"I know son," He said "I know." He kept his hand on Jacques's shoulder, before turning again to face the rest of the men.

"They tried to change the world too fast" one of the men said, his voice raw. The hand on Jacques's shoulder tightened, fingers digging in painfully.

"This is the land that fought for liberty" another man snapped, the spark in his eyes coming into his voice.

"Here's the thing about equality," the man with his hand on Jacques's shoulder spoke, the spark Jacques had seen flickering in his tone "Everyone's equal when they're dead". The last word was hollow, a stark contrast to the hope in his flicker in his eyes. He turned and looked up at the windows of the Café, grey eyes searching the macabre tableau. The men again grew silent before looking up as well, Jacques refused to look up; he kept his eyes fixed on the ground, though that did nothing to stop him from seeing the blood spattered everywhere.

"Tomorrow comes" Jacques spoke suddenly, surprising even himself. The men looked at him. "There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes. It's something En – I heard once." He said. The men all stared before nodding and slowly moving forward into the Café. The hand on Jacques's shoulder stayed there. Jacques kept his eyes forward, focused on ignoring the hand that hung into the top of the door. Once inside, he looked around slowly.

"Don't look boy" the man said, Jacques shook his head.

"I have too." _Did you see them_? Jacques looked once more. The men were lying next to one another, some with eyes open and faces gritted in pain, other with eyes closed and peaceful expressions. One caught his eye. A small, blonde boy.

Gavroche.

His blue eyes were open, staring at nothing, but still holding Jacques in their gaze. On his small chest, pinned to the blue jacket, was the floret of the colours of the students.

Red and Black

Blood and Darkness

Dawn and Night

Jacques cleared his throat; he had known Gavroche, run through the streets with him, called him a friend. He closed his eyes. Gavroche's jacket was stained with blood, but on it hung a medal. The medal of a hero. In Jacques's eyes no one deserved it more than the little gamin. The boy who had been so strong and, plucky, and courageous. Even till the end.

Jacques stepped pasted Gavroche, unable to look at his small body anymore, but feeling each step away like a knife to his heart.

His eyes fell over the bodies. He counted once, twice, three times. One he knew, had gotten away, the streets were alive with the story of Marius Pontmercy's miraculous rescue. But there was something wrong.

"Wait, there are two – two missing." For one, wild moment he felt hope. He combed again through the faces looking for the familiar decrepit drunk and blonde leader. Then he remembered, even as the voice attached to the hand on his shoulder spoke.

"They're upstairs". Jacques heart fell, shattering again, ripping him apart inside. Woodenly, he let himself be led up the steps.

Each step brought him closer to the two men he had held closest. Grantaire with his dishevelled, drunken kind heart. His cynical, broken humour and Enjolras, who burned with an in human flame. Alive with light and energy, full of passion for this new world, a world of hope and equality and freedom. Jacques could hear one of Enjolras's speeches now in the back of his mind. One of the first he'd ever heard from the man.

"_At_ _the end of the day, another day dawns, and the sun in the morning is ready to rise._" Enjolras had been in pure form that night, blonde hair shining, blue eyes blazing, body strung with energy. Every word spoken full of passion and conviction, but never roughly given. Instead they were caressed, as if he spoke of a lover. He had been captivating, Jacques had watched, enthralled. "_There is a hunger in the land, my friends, and reckoning still to be reckoned. There will be Hell to pay, at the end of the day_!" He had called out the last words, chest heaving, and hair falling into blazing eyes amid the cheers of Les Amis and the other men in the café that night. Men who were starving and desperate, who would believe in anyone or anything that promised them a better life. This boy, standing on a table in an old Café gave them that.

Jacques stumbled on the last step, grasping for the railing to prevent falling. Looking up, he was horror struck at the state of a room that had once been warm and cheerful. Now it was in a state of devastation. Shattered glass, from bottles, lamps, windows, so much glass Jacques couldn't know from where it came littered the floor. A floor that was pitted and scarred and ravaged, the table that Enjolras had delivered speeches from was overturned, and Garantaire's stool thrown into a corner in pieces. Jacques could hear, again in the back of his mind, another of Enjolras's speeches, this time delivered for Les Amis, full of words Jacques didn't understand, but a power he felt just the same.

_"Courage, and onward! Citizens, where are we going? To science made government, to the force of things become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself its sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the union of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions; no more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. Civilization will hold its courts at the summit of Europe, and, later on, at the middle of continents, in a grand parliament of the intelligence."_

The hand on his shoulder tightened once more, and looking up, Jacques saw in that man's face anger. Anger reflected in all faces there. And behind that anger, and shame, for there would always be shame, for failing to come to the aid of the men who fought for them, there was again a spark. A spark Jacques felt again ignite inside himself.

"Do you hear the people sing?" one man asked, for though there was no sound, a song had taken root in the heart of Paris.

"They sing the song of angry men" Another stated, looking around at the destruction of the room.

"No," another spoke, his voice rough but strong and sure. "It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again." And there, before his eyes, Jacques saw the spark turn into a small flame, the same flame that had burned deep within the hearts of Les Amis. Jacques tool a breath and prepared to look up. Across the room. To the bodies that lay there.

One was slumped against the wall, facing the group, though the features were buried in his arm. The familiar light brown hair was scruffy, falling onto unshaven cheeks; the clothing was in such a state that it was clear it had been that way before death. Grantaire.

The second figure wasn't even fully visible, just a set of legs clad in black cloud trousers and wrapped in a red flag. Legs leading to a body. That hung out a window. Jacques swallowed again, blinking back tears.

How apt it seemed, that from afar, the body of Enjolras, hanging upside down from a window, wrapped in the symbol of the revolution looked like a tear. The macabre symmetry of it all sent chills racing down Jacques's spine.

"It was an execution" one man said, looking around. The fingers on Jacques's shoulder tightened to the point of near agony. Jacques knew, without looking, the knuckles of that hand would be white.

"They never stood a chance," another added, voice raw, anger evident. "It wasn't battle, it was slaughter." The men were silent, each locked in their own thoughts and feelings. Again it was Jacques who broke the silence. He looked at the blood spattered all around the room, the small pool under Grantaire, the dark stain on the flag beneath Enjolras, and remembered the streets and the women scrubbing away blood.

"They knew," he said as calmly as he could. The men all looked at him. One spoke.

"What?"

"They knew" Jacques repeated. "It was in their final call to arms and for aid. En – Enjolras's final speech." The men looked at him, eyes questioning. "Some will fall and some will live." He stated, staring at each man in turn. "Will you stand up and take your chance?" the men averted their eyes. Their answer had been clear. They hadn't taken a chance, but the students had. Not meeting each other's eyes, they again looked around the room. Though unspoken, the promises made in those few, brief moments were binding. The fire in their eyes grew ever brighter, fanning flames. Flames that would burn slow and hot.

Jacques, watching it all happen remembered, but didn't speak the words Enjolras had spoken after. Words the young revolutionary had spoken as if to himself _"The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France."_

"Come on." It came from the man still holding Jacques's shoulder. The one with grey eyes partially tear filled and a voice that was rough with grief. His hand on Jacques's shoulder was like an anchor, a homeport in a raging storm. Though for whom, Jacques didn't know.

"Come on, let's – let's get them downstairs." The men gathered looked at each other, then the bodies. There was peace they exuded, like the end a storm, when the destruction and violence have finished, and the world is preparing to begin again, and all are grateful for the end of the gale.

"Why weren't they moved earlier?" Jacques asked. He knew Enjolras and Grantaire hadn't been the only two to die in this room. There was too much blood for that. The man at his shoulder answered.

"'Will you take your place with me?' " He quoted Enjolras, nodding at Grantaire, his voice hollow. "He did, in the end. They died together, facing the National Guard. They died as friends, as brothers. We would not move them apart." Jacques nodded. It seemed fitting. In life they had rarely agreed on anything, though the bond had between the two had run deep.

Jacques looked around the room again, remembering all that had passed inside its walls. One of the men noticed and he looked at Jacques for a long moment.

"You knew these boys," he stated calmly, level brown eyes staring into Jacques's. Jacques nodded. "Then maybe you can tell us what that" he gestured around the room, at the destruction and battle scars. "What this _sacrifice _was for?"He demanded, eyes wide grief, shame, guilt and a thousand other emotions hung in them.

Another spoke. His voice was cold as ice, raging hotter than an inferno and ragged as sandpaper. "I heard them last night, heard the soldiers calling to them in the early dawn. 'The people of Paris sleep in their beds.' He said." The man stopped, chest heaving in shame and horror and regret. "Told them that they had no chance. 'Why throw your lives away?' he asked. They had every chance to run. So why didn't they boy? Why did they throw their lives away?" The fingers dug into Jacques's skin, hooked under sharp collarbones.

Jacques knew then, at these words, questions and demands, that all the men had known these students somehow; Les Amis had touched their lives, in a way separate from the horror of the barricade. And all asked the same question, Jacques felt the weight of Enjolras's gaze on him, in that moment, phantom though it was. He lifted his face to meet the man's stare.

"To be free." The simple, truthful answer caused the man's face to crack with pain, though the spark flared and flickered, and the hand on Jacques's shoulder tightened again. Three words. All of the fight of Les Amis summed up into three words. Combeferre had said them to Marius once, to explain the fight, and now Jacques said them, to justify their death. Three words, a legacy.

"They died." Was said in response. This time, the voice attached to the hand on Jacques's shoulder answered, and Jacques heard it only dimly through the roaring in his ears.

"They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord." It was said so simply, but with such conviction that all felt the flame their chests burn brighter. It was as if, for a moment, Les Amis were still there. Jacques felt them, heard the cheers. His own heart burned.

Then, one by one, the men looked again at the bodies, reluctant to move them, to confirm what they already knew, but unwilling that anyone else to should undertake the task. One man took the first step.

What followed was something Jacques would always remember, but wish to forget. The look on Enjolras's face, a fierce passionate pride, even in death. The grief in the eyes of the men as they looked at him, body riddled with bullets. Eight. Jacques counted. All bullets in the front of his torso. Grantaire's body was much the same, though his expression not quite so passionate, rather, it was satisfied and happy, a small smile curving the lips.

"They died facing their foes." It was spoken as a blessing, an almost reverence in the tone of the man who said it. Carefully, the bodies of Enjolras and Grantaire were taken down the steps. They were laid alongside those of their friends.

Jacques looked at them, eyes fixing on Enjolras. The man at his shoulder stood beside him. He looked at Jacques.

"What is it?" his voice was gentle, but probing. He wasn't asking what was wrong, that was obvious, but what Jacques found so impossible to comprehend in that one moment. Jacques bit his lip, fighting back tears at the sight of the young man, a law student, a _friend_, no longer so full of the life and vitality that had made him great.

"He – he burned, with this almost... in human light. He was so _alive_. I just don't understand how –" Jacques's voice caught. The man knelt in front of Jacques, placing his other hand over the boy's heart.

"He fought for the people, the miserable and wretched ones." He paused for a moment, brow furrowing, grey eyes growing distant. "And for the wretched of the earth, there is a flame that never dies," he looked directly at Jacques, eyes no longer distant, but bright and burning. "You said there was a life about to start when tomorrow comes." Jacques nodded. The fingers on his shoulder again tightened. "That life is the future that _they_ will bring, when tomorrow comes."

He looked at Jacques a moment more. Their eyes met, and Jacques stared into the young face, weighed down with so much grief and guilt, the light grey eyes awash with tears he would not shed. The thick, black mustache hid his mouth from view, though Jacques knew that his lips were pressed into a thin line. One second more trapped in that gaze. An impossibly long, drawn out second in which one thousand things and nothing was said all at once. Then slowly standing, the man looked down at Enjolras for a moment, and his shoulders bowed with grief.

"Your blood is on my hands." His voice was rough and ragged. Finally, after what seemed like forever and no time at all, the hand on Jacques's shoulder moved. Without the now familiar weight, Jacques felt lost, a boat cast adrift in a hurricane, mooring cut by an unfeeling blade.

The man clapped a hand on Jacques's back and ruffled his hair before stepping back. He stood with his back straight and his heels together. At attention. He nodded at the row of bodies, a sign Jacques knew was one of the highest signs of respect this man could give. At the doorway, the man turned and Jacques saw the fire in his eyes burn bright. He spoke three words.

"Vive la France"

Then he was gone, walking past the men and women gathered outside, past the children gathered in the streets. He stopped once, bent down and handed something to an old woman who was crouched in a doorstep. The woman clasped his hand and kissed his fingers. The man smiled and shook his head before walking away. He stopped for a moment, a little way away and looked around. He stepped into a small space between houses and took out three things. A musket, a tall hat, and a red and blue coat with brass buttons. He stared at the bundle in his hands, and took a breath. That spark turned into an inferno. Leaving the hat and musket, but pulling on the jacket to ward off chill, the man walked slowly away.

Jacques moved to the doorway, looking at the group in the square. On their faces were expressions of guilt, fear, grief, anger and shock. But in all their eyes was the same thing. A spark. Just a spark, but Jacques knew that one day, when the horror of the barricade was not so close, and when the grief had been dulled slightly, that spark would become a flame.

A few streets over, the man who's hand had been clenched on Jacques's shoulder stood looking into a river. Holding his hand over the rushing water, he felt the flame in his chest burn over into his hands, fingertips alive with energy. His palm opened, facing down for a moment. Then he walked away. In the light of the morning, the badge of the Army General of the French National Guard glinted and winked like an ember.

_Let others rise  
To take our place  
Until the earth is free_

**So, yes Hadley Fraser is in this twice. Simply because, why not?**

**Anyway, this story was inspired by Kchan88's story Blood-Stained Memories. Which you should all go read. Because it is brilliant. And it's an excuse for another story involving getting to picture Hadley Fraser's face. But also because it is brilliant.**

**Also, I would just like to say, that while I freely offer my soul to George Blagden and am in a constant sense of awe at his talent... Hadley was Grantaire here... maybe someday I'll do a story with Ramin as Enjolras and George as Grantaire, to shake things up a bit. **

**Anyway, if this was your cup of tea, share it, tell others, lemme know. If not, tell me why? All it takes is a word to make me smile!**

**SerynnLux**


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